mandolin
Americannoun
noun
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a plucked stringed instrument related to the lute, having four pairs of strings tuned in ascending fifths stretched over a small light body with a fretted fingerboard. It is usually played with a plectrum, long notes being sustained by the tremolo
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a vegetable slicer consisting of a flat stainless-steel frame with adjustable cutting blades
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mandolin
1700–10; < Italian mandolino, diminutive of mandola, variant of mandora, alteration of pandora bandore
Explanation
A mandolin is a bit like a small guitar — it's a musical instrument with a wooden body, strings, and a long neck. A musician plays a mandolin by plucking or strumming the strings. Its sound is higher than a guitar, and it's often played alongside lower-pitched instruments, such as banjos and guitars. The mandolin is popular around the world and in many different kinds of music; in the United States, it's played most often in country music. The word itself comes from the Italian mandolino, which is an altered form of the Latin pandura, or "three-stringed lute."
Vocabulary lists containing mandolin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It will also let them take the "risk" of playing venues "off the beaten track", Mandolin player Alasdair Taylor says.
From BBC • Apr. 24, 2026
Tweezer in hand, Mandolin Brassaw concentrates like a surgeon in the operating theater as she places metal letters in minuscule 6-point type into a curved tray.
From Seattle Times • May 1, 2022
There are also visual and/or aural cues to "Moonstruck," the underrated "Captain Corelli's Mandolin," "National Treasure," "Mandy," "Con Air," and "The Croods," among several other films.
From Salon • Apr. 22, 2022
He also played the mando-bass in the Baltimore Mandolin Orchestra.
From Washington Post • Dec. 10, 2020
Perkins, who led the Mandolin Club, joshed him at dinner.
From Stanford Stories Tales of a Young University by Field, Charles K. (Charles Kellogg)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
